


lonely/cold/empty

by AtlantisRises



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bad Aftercare, Bondage, Character Study, Gen, Good Friends, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, bars and prisons and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 21:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlantisRises/pseuds/AtlantisRises
Summary: People leave, and then they come back.OR: three vignettes about how Mollymauk is terrible at being alone.





	lonely/cold/empty

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Taliesin's comment on Talks about Molly never learning how to live alone. It went in a weird direction. 
> 
> If you are here for fun and happy porn this probably isn't the fic for you. It's mostly a character study, and while nobody purposely hurts anybody else, there's a whole bit in the middle that deals with sub drop/insufficient aftercare and how it can make your brain a bit fucky sometimes.

Molly is drinking something blue and trying not to notice that the bar stools on either side of him are empty. He pulls out his deck, spreads it out over the counter, and ticks through a mental list.

Yasha left five days ago. Molly feels her absence as keenly as he always does, but it’s nothing new. Yasha is gone. Yasha is always gone.

( _That isn’t fair_ , he tells himself. _She’s always here when you need her most)_

Jester is in her room, possibly sleeping but probably painting.

Molly shuffles his cards—once, twice—and thunks the deck against the wood.

Beau and Nott are a few tables away, engaged in a loud drinking contest with a nasty-looking halfling man.

Molly flips over a card, doesn’t look at it, and slides it back into the deck. He isn’t going to turn around and check on them. He can hear them from here, Beau’s voice husky and slurring while Nott barks out a laugh louder than anything he’s heard from her sober.

They’re here. He isn’t going to check on them. He draws another card.

Fjord and Caleb are on their way to the Evening Nip to parlay with the Gentleman over the fantastic mess the Mighty Nein made of their last job. Molly doesn’t envy them the task, and wouldn’t have gone himself even if he did. Cree is still there, and Cree is a nasty digging thorn in his side. The less he sees of her—the less he hears _that name_ —the better.

He lays the card on the bar top. The Moon, upright.

 _Fuck you,_ he tells the deck. _I’m fine._

“Fuck!” shouts Nott from behind him, and Molly whips around to look but her table is all laughter.

Fine, it’s all fine.

He orders another drink. The blue stuff is good. It tastes harsh and sweet, like citrus.

It isn’t even that he wants to be over there, with Nott and Beau, because he doesn’t. There are days when goading on his drunk and belligerent friends is the best entertainment he could ask for, but there are also days like today, where his hands shake a little bit and being bright and bitchy and fun just feels like _work_. Better to nurse his drink and keep his mask intact from a distance. 

He should really just call it a night and go back to the room, but he can’t tear himself away from the noise. He doesn’t want to perform for anyone, right now, but he doesn’t want silence _ever._

Besides, he’s had a few drinks already and his head is a little bit buzzy and he wants someone solid to lean against.

And Fjord is not in his room.

He knows—he _knows_ —that he needs to be able to be a person with no one else around, and really, he’s almost there, but sometimes there are nights like tonight where he’s sharply, painfully aware of all of the things still missing inside of him.

He draws another card. He doesn’t look at it. Instead he takes another sip of sharp-sweet alcohol and lays his head down on the bar. A door opens, somewhere, and lets in a gust of wind, and closes.

Maybe he’s had too much, because he’s starting to feel off balance just sitting there, like he might tip over and fall into the empty space inside of himself.

_Bad. That’s bad._

A heavy warmth lands on his shoulder.

“Is this your card?”

Molly jerks his head up just enough to see another hand, holding out the card he just drew. The Hermit.

 _That’s her card. That’s her voice._ Which means…

“Yasha,” he slurs, and slumps sideways off the barstool. She’s there, and she catches him, and she bundles him up against her chest.

“Mollymauk,” she says. She smooths back his hair in the gentle, hesitant way she always does it, and relief surges through him. “Why are you drinking here alone?”

“Feelin’ funny,” he says. “Cold,” because Yasha is wonderful and dear and she knows what he means and he doesn’t have to perform for her, ever.

(“ _Empty,”_ he doesn’t say, because he isn’t going to say that word anymore.)

“Ah,” she says. She doesn’t push for more, just settles down on the bar stool beside him and pulls his hand between her two big, warm hands, and says “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he says.

She smiles her tiny Yasha smile and lays his hand down on his deck. “I have had a bit of a journey these past few days. I am not yet sure where to go next. Will you read my cards?”

“Yes. For you, darling? Yes,” says Molly, and he gathers up his deck, and he means it so much it hurts.

* * *

 

Molly is so warm. Molly is so full. Fjord is on top of him and all around him and pressed into him so deep and gods all, it’s _good._

He whines, tugging at the red ropes around his wrists just to feel them shift and bite.

Fjord chuckles, low and mean, by his ear. His breath is just another spot of heat, heat, _heat_ , and Molly _melts._ Things go a little hazy.

Molly loves the haze, loves the way it spreads all through him and fills up all of the cold empty bits in his belly and his chest and his head. In the haze, nothing exists but now: he can’t move, can’t think, can only _be_ , here, with his back pressed into the bed and his wrists tied to the headboard and the smell of sweat and sex and seawater thick around him.

Fjord shifts, and the weight on Molly’s chest lessens. Molly whines again, until something presses against his lips and he tastes salt and Fjord’s broad, dull-clawed thumb slides into his mouth. The rest of Fjord’s fingers curl under Molly’s chin and his thumb presses down on Molly’s tongue and Molly is caught there, his mouth half open and drool already beginning to pool at the corner of his lip and oh, oh, _oh._

Fjord gives a low, deep rumble of approval.

Molly opens his eyes long enough to see Fjord’s lip curled up and his pupils blown before another big, callused hand wraps around his cock and then it’s just….everything. Too much. Perfect.

And then he comes.

For a long, blissful moment he is nothing but sensation, blind and pulsing and overstimulated and flooded with warmth. Then things begin to come back.

Fuck it all, but Molly hates this part.

He gives himself some time just to breathe, drifting in the last bits of the haze as Fjord groans and pulls out—weird, bad, _empty_ —and pushes himself up and sees to the rope.

Fjord checks his wrists and his fingertips. Molly doesn’t open his eyes. His brain is coming back online and it’s a bit like sitting in a bathtub while the water grows cold. Molly doesn’t want to get out yet.

Fjord flops back down beside him and Molly turns over immediately, curling into him and pressing his face as deep into the crook of Fjord’s neck as he possibly can. It’s warm, at least.

“Alright there, darlin’?” Fjord asks.

Molly says “mmmm.” He should say more, should be purring and flirting and angling for another round, but something marble-dense and cold is already forming in his belly and he needs the warmth to chase it away. He presses closer.

It’s a relief beyond words when Fjords arms wrap around him.

 _Alright, then. It’s alright,_ he tells the bad thing in his gut, and it is, and then there’s a knock.

Caleb’s hesitant, accented voice calls, “Fjord?” all apologetic through the door.

Fjord sighs. Molly shakes his head and burrows deeper.

“Yeah, Caleb?” says Fjord, voice gruff.

“I am, uh, I am sorry to disturb you, but I would appreciate your help with something. Downstairs. Beauregard is very drunk.”

Fjord groans. “She causin’ a scene?”

“I am worried,” says Caleb, “that she is going to get herself in trouble. More trouble.”

“Dammit Beau,” says Fjord, more to himself than to Molly or Caleb, and then his arms open up and there is cold air against Molly’s back again.

_Dammit Beau._

“Gimme a minute, Molly, just to get this sorted. I’ll be right back.”

Molly whines, and it’s a different whine than earlier but Fjord doesn’t seem to catch on; he chuckles, low and pleased, and swats gently at Molly’s ass as he disentangles himself and slides out of bed.

“Fjord,” says Molly. _Not right now, not right now. Come back, please._

“Molly,” says Fjord, and then the door opens, and the door closes, and he’s gone.

Molly wraps his arms around himself and twists to push his whole face into Fjord’s pillow, chasing the smell of sex and fighting the drop. He’s cold, deep in his gut, and he’s cold where the draft through the cracked inn window brushes against his sweat-damp skin.

Fjord is coming back. _Fjord is coming back._

 _Moon above, but this is pathetic_.

He drags the pillow down so that he can curl around it, and winds up leaning on his left horn at an odd angle. With a sounds somewhere between a whine and frustrated snarl he shifts onto his stomach, and then around again onto his other side where he encounters the same problem.

He’s shivering. The marble-cold thing in his belly has chased every last bit of warmth away.

The blanket is half-off the bed and his coat is wrapped around his swords and propped against the wall and it occurs to him that either of those things might help him but he’s stuck here in a little ball, curled around himself and shivering, shivering, shivering.

Alone.

Fjord finds him like that.

Molly is still stuck, when he comes back, but he opens his eyes in time to see confusion and concern chase each other across Fjord’s face.

“I shouldn’a left,” he says, and it’s almost, but not quite, a question.

 _They needed your help,_ Molly wants to say, but the words don’t make it out of his mouth, and _fuck_ . No. Not this again. This whole sex-with-Fjord thing is new and so is sharing the bed afterwards and he’d really, _really_ rather not deal with this bullshit right now, _thanks_.

Still. No words.

Molly whines into the pillow. Fjord must hear it for what it is this time, because he sighs and yanks his shirt over his head and climbs back into bed.

“Molly,” he says.

Molly shakes his head.

Fjord gathers up the blanket and pulls it up over both of them. “Molly, I'm sorry. D’you want me here, right now?”

Molly nods.

“Then c’mere,” says Fjord, and warm arms pull Molly forward against a warm chest.

It takes a while, after that, but slowly, slowly, the cold fades, and Molly falls asleep.

* * *

 

Molly is only a little peeved to see Beau run when the Crownsguard close in. This _particular_ mishap is his fault, after all, the result of the wrong words spoken about the wrong goddess too loudly in the wrong shop. Besides, Beau hates jail.

She could have maybe, possibly, stayed to help him talk his way out of this one, but really, he’s only a little bit pissed off.

Even that fades fairly quickly, because the holding cell they throw him into is small and dark and underground, and as soon as the door closes there isn’t much room left in his head for any thought that isn’t _fuck, no no no no no._

Underground is ok when there’s a lot of it. The sewers, the Gentleman’s smuggling passages, those were all nasty and dank but ultimately alright because they went on for miles in either direction. Molly could hold his hands out and spin and not touch walls or ceiling. He could walk and walk and walk and know that there were exits ahead of him and behind him, with doors and ladders and keys and fresh air.

This cell is very, very small, and the ceiling is barely tall enough for him to stand up comfortably. No matter how much he shakes it, the door wouldn’t open.

Molly tastes dirt, and spits, and wraps his arms around himself.

 _Ok_ . _It’s ok._ It’s good that Beau didn’t stay behind, because now she can get help. He’ll be out of here soon. He just has to wait.

He sits down in the corner and lays his head on his knees until the feeling or dirt walls against his back _and_ his side is entirely too much and he drags himself to the middle of the cell. He’s cold.

It smells wet, and it smells like dirt. He has dreams that are full of the smell of dirt.

 _No._ No, this is different. He can breathe. He can move. Someone will come for him. He just has to wait.

 _Wait for Beau?_ Beau hates him.

No. No, she doesn’t hate him, but Beau _does_ think he’s loud and bothersome. What if she decides it’s too much bother, that she’s better off…

No. And even if she did _(she won’t. She wouldn’t)_ the others would notice if he didn’t come back.

But then, Zadash is dangerous for them these days, and Molly getting arrested for fucking _heresy_ is only going to bring more scrutiny down on the whole party. Sure, they probably wouldn’t _want_ to leave him behind but if it were a matter of safety....

Would they? Would Fjord?

 _Gods._ Gods, he’d be on his own.

He can’t be. The last time he was alone, really and truly, he was empty and naked and crawling out of a hole in the ground and he can’t….he _can’t_. He can’t be alone and empty again.

 _No no no._ There’s no dirt in his mouth. He needs to get a-fucking- _hold_ of himself.

He needs to get out of here.

He crawls to the door—he doesn’t want to stand, doesn’t want the ceiling any closer to his head—and looks at the lock. He knows nothing about locks, and even if he did, he has nothing to pick it with. Could he break it? He looks at his hands. The guards had taken his scimitars and his claws are small and filed down for convenience’s sake but he can probably still draw blood, and if he can draw blood he can make ice and he can... _what? Freeze the door to death?_

 _Dammit._ **_Dammit!_ **

He snarls, leans back on his hands and slams his heel into the door. It rattles, and then there’s nothing, and then a voice hisses “dammit, Molly, are you trying to wake up the whole cell block?”

He knows that voice.

“Beau?”

“Shhh! Shut _up_ , do you know how long I had to wait for the fucking guard to fall asleep?”

“Beau.” His voice catches. Maybe she hears it.

“...yeah. It’s me, ok?" she says. "I followed you here. I’m...”

He hears a sigh, and a very dull thud against the door.

“I’m sorry it took me so long, ok? Just stay quiet and I’ll get you out.”

He stays quiet. What would he even _say_ ? " _I convinced myself you weren't coming back"?_

A faint scraping sound drifts into the cell, and after a moment and a few muffled curses the lock clicks and the door swings slowly, quietly, open.

Beau is there, slotting a pair of metal tools back into a leather case. Molly throws himself at her.

Beau throws him off. That’s what they’ll tell anyone who asks them, later.

Molly certainly won’t admit how long he actually clings to her, and he’s sure that Beau, wonderful, cranky little asshole that she is, isn’t about to tell anyone that she lets him.

When he finally lets go, she’s already rearranged her face back into a sneer.

“Don’t be such a fucking drama queen. Let’s go, the others are gonna wonder if we died.”

“Not this time,” says Molly.

Beau’s eyebrows knit together, just for a second. Then she punches him in the shoulder.

“Asshole. Come on, let’s get some fresh air.”

**Author's Note:**

> (play safe, kiddos)
> 
> If you enjoyed this work and would like to see more, please consider checking out this tumblr post: http://pactmagic.tumblr.com/post/175094010043/fic-comissions-for-charity
> 
> Much love!


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